I was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.

A Happy New Year to all those who stand for human rights, peace and justice in the world and oppose wars and war mongers everywhere.

-

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Editor’s remarks:
Indian ‘democracy’ is said to be the largest in the world because of
the size of India’s big population and its massive electorate. On paper,
India has a democratic constitution that enshrines basic human rights
for all and provides for a parliamentary system of government. But India
has democracy only in form, not in substance. In practice, the whole
democratic process in India has gradually become so corrupt and moribund
that Indian politics is said to be akin to a big business where leading
parties make political and economic deals and horse-trading for power.
The only law that prevails in the union is the universal rule of
corruption from the lowest levels of officials to the top officials and
politicians. That’s where India stands. The protests and sustained
pressures from the common people and workers and peasant organisations
is often negated by big economic interests. But such voices and people’s
movements are the only hope in a deeply flawed and corrupt political
system.

Nasir Khan, Editor

——————————————————————

“Getting Home”… a Missive from India by Anuradha Roy

Earlier this week I asked my friend the novelist and publisher
Anuradha Roy about the recent protests over the gang sex attack in
Delhi. She offered this account, and then gave her permission to
publish it here:

I came back to Delhi from travels elsewhere on Christmas eve. The
roads were windswept and foggy and, unusually for any Indian city,
almost deserted. Through a drive of about 20 kilometres, there was not a
single pedestrian for long stretches. There were fewer than usual cars,
hardly any auto rickshaws. Enormous state transport buses sailed past
with no occupants other than the driver and conductor.

In response to the brutal gang rape in Delhi on 16th December of a
young student, the state had taken several steps, the results of which I
was witnessing from the window of my taxi from the airport: the Delhi
metro, by which an average of about 1.8 million people travel every day,
had been shut down; the state had cordoned off the entire central vista
of Delhi where the protesters had been attacked the day before by the
police, with water cannon (in freezing December weather), tear gas and
batons. It had also set in force something called Section 144, which
makes it punishable for more than five people to gather anywhere.

Gandhi described British colonial rule over India as ‘satanic’. It is
hard to find any other word to describe the way India is ruled now.

The daily violence against women in India is nauseating enough but
people are yet more livid because of the state’s routine indifference to
it. The Home Minister has said that if he went to meet the protesters
at India Gate today, as was being demanded, he might some day be asked
to meet ‘Maoists.’ Both he and the police commissioner justified the
violent action against the thousands of students agitating for justice,
claiming that the protest had been taken over by hooligans.

In the Western world truth no longer has any meaning. In its place stands agenda.

Agenda is all important, because it is the way Washington achieves
hegemony over the world and the American people. 9/11 was the “new Pearl
Harbor” that the neoconservatives declared to be necessary for their
planned wars against Muslim countries. For the neoconservatives to go
forward with their agenda, it was necessary for Americans to be
connected to the agenda.

President George W. Bush’s first Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neil,
said that prior to 9/11 the first cabinet meeting was about the need to
invade Iraq.

9/11 was initially blamed on Afghanistan, and the blame was later
shifted to Iraq. Washington’s mobilization against Afghanistan was in
place prior to 9/11. The George W. Bush regime’s invasion of Afghanistan
(Operation Enduring Freedom) occurred on October 7, 2001, less than a
month after 9/11. Every military person knows that it is not possible to
have mobilization for invading a country half way around the world
ready in three weeks.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Once again, perhaps in the most anguishing manner ever, the deadly
shooting of 20 children (and 8 adults) between the ages of 5 and 10 at
the Newton, Connecticut Sandy Hook Elementary School,
has left America in a stunned posture of tragic bemusement. Why should
such incidents be happening here, especially in such a peaceful and
affluent town? The shock is accompanied by spontaneous outpourings of
grief, bewilderment, empathy, communal espirit, and a sense of
national tragedy. Such an unavoidably dark mood is officially confirmed
by the well-crafted emotional message of the president, Barack Obama.

The template of response has become a national liturgy in light of
the dismal pattern of public response: media sensationalism of a
totalizing kind, at once enveloping, sentimental, and tasteless (endless
interviewing of surviving children and teachers, and even family
members of victims), but dutifully avoiding deeper questions relating to
guns, violence, and cultural stimulants and conditioning. . .

U.S. carried out 333 drone strikes in Afghanistan in 2012, report says, up from 294 in 2011

The United States carried out more drone strikes in Afghanistan this
year than it has done in all the years put together in Pakistan since it
launched the covert air war there eight years ago, it has been
revealed.

The statistics, published by the U.S. Air Force and published by Wired’s Danger Room blog, show that there were 333 drone strikes in Afghanistan in 2012 alone, up from 294 in the previous year and 278 in 2010.

It is far more than an estimated 338 strikes carried out by the CIA
in Pakistan since it began hunting down remnants of al Qaeda, the
Taliban and other militant groups in the Federally Administered Tribal
Areas eight years ago.

The
U.S. carried out more drone strikes in Afghanistan this year than it
has done in all the years put together in Pakistan since it launched the
air war there eight years ago

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Seeking an explanation for tragic violence, we often turn to history
and ask ourselves how we got to this point. Writing the historical
narrative for the forces that led to the horrific elementary school
massacre of 28 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook has already
begun. Commentators correctly place Sandy Hook in a recent line of
similar incidents (Aurora, Fort Hood, Virginia Tech…) — all testimony
for America’s lack of dialogue on gun control and commitment to mental
health services. The narrative holds that American culture is becoming
increasingly violent.

In the last decade, children in places like Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq and
Gaza have also died at the hands of America’s culture of violence. Yet,
there is no national outpouring of grief and outrage in America for
these children. There is a disconnect in the American psyche between
what causes our own children to die and what causes other children
abroad to die.

As chilling as the killing
of Shias by Pakistani terrorists, who want them to be declared
non-Muslims, is the general acceptance of sectarian violence

Pakistan’s Shias are so regularly killed in targeted attacks that
counting the numbers who were thus killed in 2012 is an uphill task. But
just to give an idea, even before the start of the Muharram month, when
anti-Shia violence is usually routinely anticipated and accepted as a
given, the numbers killed had crossed 389 — the number of people the
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says died in sectarian violence in
2011.

This time, the terrorists were emboldened enough to announce their
intent. Ahead of Muharram, a number of Shias received text messages
saying ‘Kill, Kill Shias.’ Sure enough, the self-appointed deciders of
who is or is not a Muslim struck, killing 23 in two separate bomb blasts
early on in the Muharram month.

Relentless targeting

Through the year, terrorists have been relentless in going after
Shias; be it in Parachinar along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border,
Gilgit-Baltistan, Quetta, Karachi or the garrison town of Rawalpindi.
The clinical manner in which the terrorists have been going about their
“mission” has been chilling, generating enough disquiet among the
members of the community to take to the streets on December 8 outside
the United Nations headquarters in New York protesting the “genocide in
Pakistan.”

Barack Obama’s tears for the children of Newtown are in stark contrast to his silence over the children murdered by his drones

A memorial to the victims of the Sandy Hook school shootings in
Connecticut. The children killed by US drones in north-west Pakistan
‘have no names, no pictures, no memorials of candles and teddy bears’.
Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty

“Mere words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, nor can they heal
your wounded hearts … These tragedies must end. And to end them, we
must change.” Every parent can connect with what President Barack Obama said about the murder of 20 children in Newtown,
Connecticut. There can scarcely be a person on earth with access to the
media who is untouched by the grief of the people of that town.

It must follow that what applies to the children murdered there by a
deranged young man also applies to the children murdered in Pakistan by a
sombre American president. These children are just as important, just
as real, just as deserving of the world’s concern. Yet there are no
presidential speeches or presidential tears for them, no pictures on the
front pages of the world’s newspapers, no interviews with grieving
relatives, no minute analysis of what happened and why.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Nasir Khan, December 16, 2012

Dr Kazerooni, I agree with your viewpoint. I also ventured to console
myself with the thought that perhaps a tragic incident like the present
school shooting in America may lead to some sort of soul searching and
people may turn away from violence. But I know it is only an escapist
illusion because the reality is something much different than our
wishful reveries. America is a country where violence is glorified and
it is regarded not something primitive and inhuman which civilised human
beings ought to reject and seek other ways of dealing with conflicts
and social tensions. The culture of violence, gun touting, fast
shooting, random killings and uncouth cow-boyism provide the deep
undercurrents that shape American psyche and outlook. Such a psyche and
outlook at state level becomes a force utilised by American plutocrats
for militarism and global hegemony of the American Empire. In short,
America will continue to follow its traditional path as it has done in
the past both at home and in foreign countries as long as it wields
power and influence.
———————————————–
Click on the URL to see the image:

Nasir Khan: That is a fact. We all are witness to what happens when
American drones kill Pakistani children. We have never seen any
large-scale sympathy for such victims or demonstrations in America
against such killings by the American State. But when a lone American
lunatic murders children in America, and that happens often in schools
and colleges, then the conscience of the American people is stirred and
public anger and remorse engulf the whole nation.

.

Ibrahim Kazerooni Well put my friend. Do you think this is going to shake their conscience a bit?

.

Ibrahim Kazerooni We are dealing with a mindset that sees white tragedy as real tragedy. Non whites are collateral damage.

.

NB: My reply to Dr Ibrahim Kazerooni is published as Editorial to the post.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Editor’s remarks:
In fact, right from 1947 Indian occupation forces in Kashmir have had
an iron-fist policy to maintain Indian hold over Jammu and Kashmir and
to crush any resistance or voice against the occupation. The architect
of this colonial and fascist policy was none other than Jawaharlal
Nehru, the first prime minister of Independent India. In crushing the
rebellion in Kashmir that started in 1989, Israeli leadership has
actively assisted India in suppressing the Kashmiris. The military and
strategic partnership of the Zionists and extreme right-wing Hindutva
rulers and India’s open tilting towards Washington after the collapse of
the Soviet Union signalled the dawn of new geopolitical order. The
beleaguered Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir were isolated and their long
resistance and their demand for freedom from Indian occupation were most
brutally crushed by the Indian army. The strategic partnership with
Israel and US also saw the import of Israeli weapons to India which
Indian rulers used against the Muslims of Jammu and Kashmir. India used
Zionists advisers in dealing with Kashmiri Muslims because they
(Zionists) had gained much experience in dealing with the captive
population of Palestine.

.Torture. Secret prisons. Rape. Incessant murder of civilians.
Military-enforced curfew. Suppression of information. Kidnapings.
Property destruction. Ethnic cleansing. Scorched earth policies.
Protests. Mass graves. Humiliation. Beatings. Missing persons.
Intimidation. Occupation. No, this is not a description of the life of
Palestinians under the 62 year occupation of the Zionist entity. No,
this is not a description of the life of civilians living under brutal
US-UK military occupation in Iraq or Afghanistan. This is a description
of the life of civilians in Kashmir, under the despicable, savage and
inhumane Indian occupation which has been in place for 63 years.
Palestine has been politicized over and over by corrupt Arab and Muslim
leaders. It has been used for propaganda by Western politicians vying
for support from the Zionist lobby by bowing down to Israel, as well as
the Zionist media to disseminate the ‘Israel is the victim’ theme and
smear Palestinian Resistance. Kashmir however, isn’t even mentioned at
all. It is disregarded by the dictators and monarchies of the Middle
East. It is disregarded by the Zionist puppets and demagogues of the
West. Kashmir has become a forgotten occupation (1).

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

“Nothing Can Justify Torture”

Professor
Noam Chomsky is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the
Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT). He was educated at the University of Philadelphia and
at Harvard University as a Harvard Junior Fellow. He earned his PhD in
Linguistics from the University of Philadelphia in 1955. He has spent
the 57 years since then teaching at MIT. In addition to his academic
work in linguistics, Professor Chomsky has been a noted political
activist and philosopher, gaining national recognition in 1967 over his
opposition to the Vietnam War and since then has regularly spoken out
against US foreign and domestic policies and mainstream American mass
media. Between his academic career and his work as a political activist
and dissident, he has published over 100 books. On the eve of the 2012
US presidential election, he discussed with Eric Bailey of Torture
Magazine America’s human rights record under the administration of
President Obama and the military intervention policies that have seen
increased use during the Arab Spring.

EB: The US presidential elections are almost upon us and the last four years have seen significant
changes in American Federal policy in regards to human rights. One of
the few examples of cooperation between the Democratic and Republican
Parties over the last four years has been the passing of the National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012. This bill has given the United
States military the power to arrest American citizens, indefinitely,
without charge, trial, or any other form of due process of law and the
Obama Administration has and continues to fight a legal battle in
Federal Court to prevent that law from being declared unconstitutional.
Obama authorized the assassination of three American citizens, including
Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16 year old son, admittedly all members of Al
Qaeda, – all without judicial review. Additionally, the Guantanamo Bay
prison remains open, the Patriot Act has been extended, and the TSA has
expanded at breakneck speeds. What is your take on America’s human
rights record over the past four years and can you contrast Obama’s
policies with those of his predecessor, George W. Bush?

Monday, December 10, 2012

The Condition of Human Rights at the International Setting

Text of speech by Professor Francis
A. Boyle at the Puerto Rican Summit Conference on Human Rights –
University of the Sacred Heart – San Juan, Puerto Rico – December 09,
2012

Historically
this latest eruption of American militarism at the start of the 21st
Century is akin to that of America opening the 20th Century by means of
the U.S.-instigated Spanish-American War in 1898. Then the Republican
administration of President William McKinley stole their colonial empire
from Spain in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines; inflicted a
near genocidal war against the Filipino people; while at the same time
illegally annexing the Kingdom of Hawaii and subjecting the Native
Hawaiian people (who call themselves the Kanaka Maoli) to near genocidal
conditions. Additionally, McKinley’s military and colonial expansion
into the Pacific was also designed to secure America’s economic
exploitation of China pursuant to the euphemistic rubric of the “open
door” policy. But over the next four decades America’s aggressive
presence, policies, and practices in the so-called “Pacific” Ocean would
ineluctably pave the way for Japan’s attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7,
194l, and thus America’s precipitation into the ongoing Second World
War. Today a century later the serial imperial aggressions launched and
menaced by the neoconservative Republican Bush Junior administration and
the neoliberal Democratic Obama administration are now threatening to
set off World War III.Continues >>

Report identifies 500 ‘alleged perpetrators’ of human rights abuses from low-ranking policemen to Indian army generals

Indian soldiers patrol a sector near the India-Pakistan border in
the northern Indian state of Kashmir Photograph: MANISH SWARUP/AP

Hundreds of serving Indian soldiers, including senior officers, are accused of involvement in widespread human rights abuses in Kashmir in a new report to be published on Thursday.

Many have been decorated and promoted despite serious allegations
against them, the authors say. In a move likely to provoke anger, the
report, by a team of veteran legal activists in the Himalayan state,
names 500 “alleged perpetrators” ranging from low-ranking policemen to
Indian army generals.

The charges relate to incidents occurring throughout more than 20
years of violence pitting armed religious and separatist groups against
New Delhi’s rule in Kashmir, and include shootings, abductions, torture
and rapes.

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Implementing Israel’s Settlement Policy

This is the answer. Outmanoeuvred in the UN, Israel has huffed and
puffed against the house that is the international community and taken
the policy of increasing settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank
in the corridor of land termed E1 out of cold storage. The air of
desperation is palpable. The Palestinians, having gotten the crumbs of
non-observer status at the UN in an overwhelming vote, have stirred
Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his government into violent action.
Since they can’t launch an invasion in protest or initiate another wave
of assassinations against the Palestinian moderates, they are left with a
policy of unmitigated anger.

The plans for constructing settlements on E1, a policy that will
connect Jerusalem with Maaleh Adumim, would effectively divide the
northern and western West Bank. Should that occur, a contiguous
Palestinian state would be dealt a blow even before its formal creation (Al Bawaba
News, December 4). The structure for defeating such a move is
effectively being laid. Of those 20 or so Palestinian communities that
are slated for forced evictions, 2300 are mostly Jahalin Bedouin.

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

A
US drone strike in Shin Warsak, South Waziristan on December 1 2012
marked the 300th drone strike in Pakistan of Barack Obama’s presidency,
according to Bureau research.The
attack was the second since President Obama’s re-election on November
6. It reportedly killed Abdul Rehman al-Zaman Yemeni, described as an al
Qaeda commander, along with up to three others.

Although the pace of
strikes has slowed considerably this year, CIA attacks have struck
Pakistan’s tribal areas on average once every five days during Obama’s
first term – six times more than under George W Bush. Here, we look at
the key moments of Obama’s drone campaign.

Sunday, December 02, 2012

An old man in Gaza held a placard that reads: “You take my water,
burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land,
imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all,
humiliate us all but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.”1

The old man’s message provides the proper context for the timelines
on the latest episode in the savage punishment of Gaza. They are
useful, but any effort to establish a “beginning” cannot help but be
misleading. The crimes trace back to 1948, when hundreds of thousands
of Palestinians fled in terror or were expelled to Gaza by conquering
Israeli forces, who continued to truck them over the border for years
after the official cease-fire. The persecution of Gazans took new forms
when Israel conquered the Strip in 1967. From recent Israeli
scholarship we learn that the goal of the government was to drive the
refugees into the Sinai, and if feasible the rest of the population too.

Saturday, December 01, 2012

In June 2004, in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, a notorious memo from August 2002 was leaked
. It was written by John Yoo, a lawyer in the Justice Department’s
Office of Legal Counsel and it claimed to redefine torture and to
authorize its use on prisoners seized in the “war on terror.” I had no
idea at the time that its influence would prove to be so long-lasting.

Ten years and four months since it was first issued, that memo – one of two issued on the same day that
will forever be known as the “torture memos” — is still protecting the
senior Bush administration officials who commissioned it (as well as Yoo
and his boss, Jay S. Bybee, who signed it).

Those officials include George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick
Cheney, and their senior lawyers, Alberto Gonzales and David Addington.
None of them should be immune from prosecution, because torture is
illegal under U.S. domestic law and is prohibited under the terms of
the UN Convention Against Torture,
which the United States, under Ronald Reagan, signed in 1988 and
ratified in 1994. As Article 2.2 states, unequivocally, “No exceptional
circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war,
internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be
invoked as a justification of torture.”